Magento Raw Product Import CSV Creation & Download

Bulk product handling in Magento is an expertise of its own, independent of skill-sets relating to web design, programming or general data-entry. To be especially efficient at Magento product imports, knowing spreadsheet software, such as OpenOffice Calc or Microsoft Excel, would convenient the CVS creations, and knowing the basic product structure of the target Magento website will make the whole product import/editing process more efficient.

The below tutorials should cover information to expedite any bulk product editing and importing projects, broken down in the following topics:

1. Fast Magento Product Imports with Magmi
2. Generating the Raw Product Import CSV
3. Configurable Product Imports
4. Multiple Images, Attributes, Category Tree Importing
5. Custom Options, Tier Pricing, Related Products & other Product Types
6. Tips for Creating Products in Bulk via Spreadsheet (Pending)

Magento CSV & Tools

To take advantage of most tutorials explained in this article, you will require two things:

Magmi: Magento Extension for Fast Imports

In a previous post, we introduce a free tool for fast product imports in Magento, which you should download and setup. You can learn more about the extension and how to set it up here.

Excel or OpenOffice.org's Calc

To generate the CSV files, we require spreadsheet generating software that allow formulas/functions, such as Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice. Both work similarly, but although OpenOffice is more preferred, the examples below will be done via Excel, due to its more common use.

Magento Importing Basics

Both Magento's Dataflow and the Magmi Extension have the same behavior when it comes to importing. By default, these two tools will look for the importable CSV files in your root/var/import folder, and the images in your root/media/import folder (root being the folder of your Magento install). If those folders don't exist, you will have to create them in the specified path, or change where the tool you use should look for these files. This assumes that you have an FTP software, such as FileZilla, and have access to your target stores install folders.

Generating the Raw Product CSV and Columns

To generate the basic CSV file to use for imports in the target Magento store, you will want to do a product export from the admin of that store by doing the following:

1. Login to your Magento Admin
2. Go to the Dataflow Profiles via System->Import/Export->Dataflow - Profiles, and choose Export All Products.
3. In the Profile Wizard, just make sure All fields is selected in Export: under Data Format, which it should by default, then click on Run Profile and Run Profile in Popup.
4. After the Profile executed, you should find your generated .CSV file in a folder of your Magento install, by default in root/var/export called export_all_products.csv.

Once you have the exported spreadsheet open, copy the entire header row to a new Excel Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet will vary per Magento store, because it includes all the custom created attributes, but at the very least, the minimal product import/export values on Magento 1.7 are:

store,websites,attribute_set,type,category_ids,sku,has_options,name,meta_title,meta_description,image,small_image,thumbnail,url_key,url_path,page_layout,options_container,image_label,small_image_label,thumbnail_label,msrp_enabled,msrp_display_actual_price_type,gift_message_available,price,special_price,weight,msrp,status,is_recurring,visibility,enable_googlecheckout,tax_class_id,description,short_description,custom_layout_update,special_from_date,special_to_date,news_from_date,news_to_date,qty,min_qty,use_config_min_qty,is_qty_decimal,backorders,use_config_backorders,min_sale_qty,use_config_min_sale_qty,max_sale_qty,use_config_max_sale_qty,is_in_stock,low_stock_date,notify_stock_qty,use_config_notify_stock_qty,manage_stock,use_config_manage_stock,stock_status_changed_auto,use_config_qty_increments,qty_increments,use_config_enable_qty_inc,enable_qty_increments,is_decimal_divided,stock_status_changed_automatically,use_config_enable_qty_increments,product_name,store_id,product_type_id

When importing via Magmi, many of the values can be disregarded and importing will work normally, but if you do intend to import via the Magento Defaflow method or do want custom values for the below columns, then you may want to add the following columns that I left out (although it may work without):

country_of_manufacture,meta_keyword,custom_design,custom_design_from,custom_design_to,product_status_changed,product_changed_websites

It is important to note that the order of these columns do not matter when importing via Dataflow or Magmi. Simply having the column headers is sufficient for it to be queued during import.

Importable Product CSV Sample Download

The below Product CSV sample is based on Magento 1.7, but may also work on earlier versions, starting at 1.4.

Download “Magento Product Import CSV” raw-import-products-magento-1.7.csv – Downloaded 6819 times – 19 KB